I just recently read an article in News China titled "A Dose of Sang" by Zhou Tian and Yi Ziyi, which I thought would make for an awesome lesson in a high school English or sociology classroom. It is about Chinese youth and Sang culture. The word sang literally means loss or deprivation and for Chinese youth, Sang means a culture of "idleness, depression, apathy and lack of self-motivation". The article explains that this culture has become,"an increasingly prominent life attitude and cultural phenomenon among young Chinese." I could not help but think that this is not just in China. I see some of these attitudes amongst students in the US as well. There seems to be a feeling of why bother from a lot of youth today.

Not only would students appreciate this article (which, as a bonus, is written in language that is comprehensible for students) but I think it would spark some really interesting conversations about their own attitudes and culture as American youth. I think an engaging lesson would be for students to investigate what is causing this Sang culture not just in China, but here as well. They could look for concrete examples (textual evidence) in films, music, social media, memes, etc, which are all contributing factors to this overall attitude. Much of youth culture today is centered on dark humor and this seems to feed into Sang in a way that students may have more insight into than adults.